Man Guilty of Impersonating US Marine & Threatening Women Online

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – A man was sentenced to over a year in prison in Alexandria Friday for impersonating as a U.S. Marine and threatening women he met online.

James M. Johnson of Roxboro, N.C., was sentenced to 15 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for posing as a Marine and threatening 11 women he met through Internet dating websites.

Johnson, 29, pled guilty on July 30, to one count of cyber-stalking and one count of making interstate threats.

According to his plea agreement, he created an online dating profile posing as “Shawn Davis”, a U.S. Marine purportedly stationed at Quantico.

He used photographs of a uniformed Marine in his dating profile and created a false back-story on “Davis’s” family and military history. Often using the screen name “Cuddleman”, Johnson used the assumed identity to befriend at least 11 women in Virginia and across the mid-Atlantic from July 2009 to Oct. 2010.

According to court documents, he expressed romantic interest in the women, then attempted to coerce them to send him nude or seductive photos, or disrobe or engage in other sexual activity in front of a webcam.

When the women refused, he threatened to sexually assault them, kill them or their children, or post altered photographs on pornographic websites. The documents note that in one instance, he told a victim he would “slit (her) throat and send his friends to kill (her).”

On another occasion, Johnson spoke on the phone with police who had been called to a victim’s home, and he threatened to “blow up” the house if they didn’t leave.